


A Sluggish Memory

by OgdensOldFirewhiskey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, Guilt, Horcruxes, Missing Scene, Pensieves, Regret, Slytherins Being Slytherins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OgdensOldFirewhiskey/pseuds/OgdensOldFirewhiskey
Summary: It was all anyone was talking about. Harry Potter had emerged from the final task in the Triwizard Tournament clutching the dead body of another student, and Dumbledore was claiming (rather tactlessly, Horace thought) that Harry had witnessed the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Horace had just started feeling the beginnings of excitement that Dumbledore might be here to give him a firsthand account of all that had transpired a few weeks ago, when a realization doused him like a bucket of ice-cold water.Dumbledore pays Horace a visit soon after the events in the graveyard, and Horace quickly discerns Dumbledore's true intentions for his visit. Missing moment, Slughorn POV, set between GoF and OoTP. Ever wondered how and when Dumbledore got the altered memory off of Slughorn?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	A Sluggish Memory

Horace was just finishing perusing a rather interesting article in the _Daily Prophet_ about a new regulation on the international trading of mandrakes and its potential effects on local potion-making when he heard a firm knock on his front door.

He raised his eyebrows and stared at the door and the considerable distance he would need to travel from his current location. He was really quite comfortable, lounging in his favorite armchair, his feet elevated on a velvet pouf, a glass of his favorite elf-made wine in one hand. He wasn’t expecting anybody, and he thought it rather rude to turn up at somebody’s doorstep without any notice. Perhaps he wouldn’t answer the knock at all.

Whoever it was at the door knocked again, and Horace sighed in irritation. He made a job of getting out of his chair, working himself into a steam of grumbling resentment. It must be somebody trying to peddle some new product or other – hadn’t Doris Crockford mentioned a particularly persistent cauldron salesman the other day?

Horace started speaking before he had fully opened the door. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested, so you can—Oh! Albus!” he exclaimed in surprise as he pulled the door wide enough to see the tall, thin man with twinkling blue eyes and a long beard who was, unmistakably, Albus Dumbledore.

“Hello Horace,” said Dumbledore, smiling kindly. “I do apologize for dropping in on you like this. I hope I am not interrupting?”

“Not at all, not at all!” boomed Horace, his irritation evaporating on the spot. “Not interrupting anything, though I can’t say I was expecting you. It’s been too long, my good man!” boomed Horace, feeling that familiar sense of importance he got when he was able to bestow such monikers upon such influential people.

Though he and Albus had worked together for many years as colleagues, it wasn’t a regular occurrence that they visited one another like this. It had been years since they had last spoken face to face – when had it been? The Christmas Party back in ’89? Regardless, it had been ages – though, they occasionally corresponded, of course (a fact of which Horace was immeasurably proud. He liked to mention that he had regular correspondence with Dumbledore when he could at various functions, perhaps exaggerating the frequency with which they exchanged letters, because really, who wouldn’t?).

He’d have sooner expected a unicorn to show up at his door, a surprise made no smaller by the fact that Dumbledore had been in the papers very frequently as of late.

It was all anyone was talking about. Harry Potter had emerged from the final task in the Triwizard Tournament clutching the dead body of another student, and Dumbledore was claiming (rather tactlessly, Horace thought) that Harry had witnessed the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Horace had just started feeling the beginnings of excitement that Dumbledore might be here to give him a firsthand account of all that had transpired a few weeks ago, when a realization doused him like a bucket of ice-cold water.

It was with sudden wariness that he said, “I take it you’d like to come in, then?”

“Quite, if you don’t mind the imposition upon your hospitality,” said Dumbledore.

Horace raised his eyebrows, swallowing slowly. He wondered whether there was any point in trying to deny him entry, but then thought perhaps doing so would imply he was hiding something (which he most certainly was not). So he stepped aside, allowing room for Dumbledore to enter. “Then come in, come in, dear man.”

Dumbledore nodded and complimented his charmingly decorated garden as he crossed the threshold.

As Dumbledore sat on his flowered loveseat and Horace offered him a cup of tea, his mind raced, trying to piece together everything he had read in the _Prophet_ and the niggling worries that had pestered him in the weeks since. He’d had swatted away these worries like flies, reminding himself that he didn’t know anything, he was jumping to conclusions, just worrying over nothing… That Tom… well, You-Know-Who might have returned when everyone thought him dead… well, the _Prophet_ wasn’t giving much credence to the story anyway, he may not have returned at all.

“How have you been, Horace?” asked Dumbledore, interrupting his frantic thoughts so suddenly that Horace flinched. “You are quite right that it has been far too long since I’ve last seen you! How have you been enjoying retirement?”

“Ah, well, you know me, I do like the quiet life. It’s been a lot of reading and stodgy functions to tell the truth,” said Horace, taking great care to keep his voice cheerful and even. He could be entirely wrong about the reason for Dumbledore’s visit, after all. “I can’t say the same for you. You seem to be keeping quite busy, Albus! Hardly a day goes by when I don’t read your name in the paper.”

Dumbledore gave him a wry smile. “Ah yes, well, the _Daily Prophet_ has always been the ficklest of my friends. What is it that they called me yesterday? A ‘trouble-stirring truant’?”

Horace chuckled. “I was particularly fond of the comparison between you and Wendelin the Weird.”

“Yes, I am certainly at the valley of my popularity,” said Dumbledore cheerfully, as though the fact that the wizarding world thought him insane was of no more importance to him than last season’s Quidditch scores.

Horace wondered whether he should ask the question burning his tongue. He was immensely curious, wanting to hear from Dumbledore’s own mouth what had happened with the Potter boy and the Triwizard Tournament. The _Daily Prophet_ was an unreliable source at best, and it was always difficult to discern between their intentional slant and the kernels of truth buried within it. He was itching to hear about what had happened straight from the source. But to do so would be to carry the conversation closer to where he feared it was going.

He settled for saying something vague. “Well, they’ve been reporting some… interesting tales.”

“Interesting, indeed.” Dumbledore’s eyes were shrewd and piercing. Horace knew what he was going to do before he did it, and he quickly emptied his mind of thought before Dumbledore might glean any information that might be floating there. Friends they might be, but Horace was not a stupid man. The timing of this visit was nothing short of telling.

“So, it’s true, is it?” he asked finally. “He’s back?”

Dumbledore continued to hold his gaze. “Yes. Voldemort has returned.”

Horace flinched at the name, a thrill of fear electrifying him. “But… how can you… how can you be sure?” he asked desperately, wanting to believe that it wasn’t true even though he had never known Dumbledore to lie about such matters.

Dumbledore seemed to weigh his words carefully. “There was a witness, as you may have read.”

“The boy? Potter?” prompted Horace, curiosity and fear battling for dominance.

“Yes. Harry witnessed his return, and escaped to tell the tale.”

Horace let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “The boy… he… how on earth could he… What’s he like, Albus? Harry Potter? He’s only, what, fourteen? And he… he saw…”

“Yes. He is… both less than and greater than his legend at once,” said Dumbledore, still using that measured voice.

“And you believe him? Absolutely?”

“Absolutely,” replied Albus without even a hint of doubt.

Horace’s mind was whirring, though he was careful to avoid eye contact with Dumbledore. He was back. Harry Potter had witnessed it and escaped. The boy must be something special, something extraordinary, to escape him; he, who had such prodigious skill, skill greater than any student Horace had ever taught. And he had returned after laying dormant for years… but no. He mustn’t think about that, mustn’t remember…

“Well, I shouldn’t like to believe it,” he asked finally, looking up at Dumbledore again. He wished suddenly that Albus would leave so that he wouldn’t be so fearful of his own thoughts. He wanted to be able to digest this information in peace, and to make a decision as to how to proceed.

“No,” Dumbledore agreed. “But you, unlike our fearless Minister, do believe that Voldemort has returned?”

Horace nodded slowly. “I can’t imagine what you’d have to gain if it were not the truth, Albus.”

Dumbledore smiled kindly again. “Well, quite. But, do forgive me for asking, are you not curious as to how Voldemort has returned after all of these years?” he asked lightly.

Horace’s blood turned to ice. He felt rather as though Dumbledore had pulled the wool over his eyes and led him to the edge of a cliff. This visit was, had always been, a trap. Horace met his eyes and in that moment he thought they might have understood the other perfectly. Dumbledore already knew that which he had so feared divulging. He felt a surge of irritation. If he already knew, why was he here? Why bother intruding upon him to ask, to bring it all up again?

“I’m sure He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used Dark Magic I’ve never even—"

“Surely we can call him by his name? If not Voldemort, then at least Tom—“

“Stop!” said Horace forcefully, his heart beating rather frantically. “I do not wish to… I do not like… it was decades ago that he was…”

“He is still the man we both taught so many moons ago, Horace,” said Dumbledore gently.

“He’s not!” he boomed. He could not remember standing, but he was on his feet. “He is… an abomination, nothing like… he changed! He got involved with the wrong…”

But Horace knew he was dissembling and prevaricating and he didn’t believe a word of it. Tom Riddle had not undergone some personality transformation after Horace knew him as a boy. He, Horace, had simply not seen what was there until it was too late, until the damage had already been done…

Dumbledore seemed to know what Horace was thinking, and waited patiently for him to finish before he said calmly, “No one could have predicted what he would become.”

Horace met his gaze, feeling unreasonably angry even though Dumbledore had said nothing to warrant it. He took a deep breath and sat back on his couch. He wanted to get to the point, so that this conversation could end. “Why are you here, Albus?”

Dumbledore paused. Horace felt as though they were in some sort of ungainly dance, both taking cautious steps, trying to decide how much information to divulge to the other, testing the water to find out which information the other already possessed. “Tom Riddle has returned after nearly thirteen years. You know as well as I that no magic can reawaken the dead. “

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with—"

Dumbledore pressed on. “This fact, along with evidence that some spectral form of Voldemort has been lingering and attempting to return to power since his demise, leads me to believe that Tom Riddle must have taken magical measures to ensure that he could not die before he fell so many moons ago.”

The silence billowed around them.

Horace looked down to see that his hands were shaking. This is what he had feared from the moment he had registered the oddity of Albus’ appearance on his doorstep, from the moment he had read in the paper that Dumbledore was suggesting He was back, had feared for thirteen years after it became clear that Tom Riddle had not truly died. “It’s terrible. Awful. But I don’t see what any of that has to do with me.”

“I am paying a visit to those who once knew Tom Riddle, in the hope that–“

“I didn’t know him, not well, not any better than you did!” he blustered. “I only taught him in Potions, I wasn’t—“

Dumbledore interrupted his lies with surprising gentleness, “I am not accusing you of anything, Horace. Tom Riddle fooled a great number of people, and I count myself among those who did not see him for what he truly was.”

“Yes,” said Horace, feeling rather sheepish at his outburst. “Yes he was… quite charming. Quite charming.”

Vivid memories of the striking young man who Horace had prized above all others danced before his eyes. Oh, how much he’d expected from him, how highly he’d thought of him…

Dumbledore nodded, and then met Horace’s eye. “Let us speak plainly, then. Did he ever mention anything to you about Horcruxes?”

The baldness of the question was shocking. It was as though Dumbledore had been a fly on the wall, had already witnessed the conversation that had haunted him for thirteen long years and was coming here merely to force a confession out of Horace for his role in the whole mess.

“How… how did you… I don’t…” he spluttered, a mixture of fear and indignation roiling in his stomach.

“I have suspected for some time now that he may have made a Horcrux,” explained Dumbledore. “I wondered whether, as one of the teachers with whom he felt closest, he may have ever discussed or shared this with you.”

Horace teetered. To admit to the conversation would be to admit that it was important, to admit that he had given Riddle information that was crucial to his continued survival. It had been such a small moment, such a passing conversation. Riddle could have learned the information from any source, could have read about it in a library book for goodness sake. It wasn’t all down to a single conversation, surely.

He delayed answering. What did Dumbledore already know? “Why do you suspect he made a Horcrux, then?” he asked gruffly.

Dumbledore eyed him piercingly again, but Horace was ready, his mind already empty. “I came across an object some years ago that I believe was once Tom Riddle’s Horcrux.”

The statement was so simple and yet dripping with implication. Horace knew Dumbledore was more than capable of connecting the dots that his own mind was hastily fitting together. If the object had once been a Horcrux, that means that it had been destroyed. And if it had been destroyed, and yet Riddle still existed…

He decided swiftly. “He did ask about Horcruxes, yes,” he admitted in a clipped tone that did not invite further questioning. “I believe it was in his sixth year. But I… I told him I didn’t know anything about them. And that was it.”

He met Dumbledore’s eye, daring him to try to search his mind for a contradiction. Dumbledore nodded slowly. “What, precisely, did he ask?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” he lied, “It was so many years ago now. I just remember him asking if I knew anything about them.”

Dumbledore nodded again. “I am sure you were alarmed by the question.”

“Well, yes!” huffed Horace. “Not exactly regular Hogwarts curriculum, is it? And I... I told him so!” he invented wildly. “I told him not to ask me about it again, that it was forbidden!”

“Hmm,” said Dumbledore, and Horace had the sneaking suspicion that Dumbledore knew that he was hiding pieces of the story. “And did he seem… satisfied with this explanation?”

“Well I can only imagine so, as I said he never asked again,” he said shortly. “That’s really all I know about it, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

He realized too late that if that were really all he knew, wouldn’t he have asked Dumbledore a question? Wouldn’t he have asked Dumbledore about the object that had once been a Horcrux, about how Riddle could still exist if it had been destroyed? He knew himself well enough to know that ordinarily he would have asked questions like this, would have pumped Dumbledore for every morsel of information that he could. But it was too late to sell it better now.

“Would you be willing to provide your memory of this conversation for me to store in the Hogwarts Pensieve?” asked Dumbledore lightly, as though this question were of no real importance.

Horace froze. To ask such a thing, to suggest that he would help Dumbledore by giving him potentially crucial information… it was dangerous is what it was. If He was truly back, it wouldn’t do well for him to become involved in this mess. If his name was ever traced to this bit of information, if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ever discovered that it was he who lead Dumbledore down the path toward his destruction… well, he didn’t want to imagine what his fate would await him. Never mind the deaths, the atrocities, the anguish he may have caused, the responsibility he bore for it all… “I… I don’t know that it would be useful to you,” he invented quickly, trying to stall, looking anywhere but at Dumbledore.

“It may not,” agreed Dumbledore. “But any information is better than none, Horace.”

“I… yes,” he said, still thinking quickly. “Yes, allow me to just…” He held up a finger to indicate he needed a moment and shuffled to his kitchen, pretending to have a bit of an ordeal finding a vial even though he knew exactly where he kept them.

He devised a plan. There was a way, he knew, to alter the memory as you removed it from your mind. He’d never done it before, of course, but he knew the basic theory. Perhaps, if he was skilled enough, Dumbledore need never know what he had told Tom Riddle on that fateful day so many moons ago, and Dumbledore would be satisfied.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, as though finding the vial he’d been standing in front of for nearly a minute. “Here it is.”

He returned to the sitting room, where he held his wand to his temple, and carefully, trying not to betray anything as he did so, cast the nonverbal incantation, quickly inventing dialogue to replace that which he did not wish Dumbledore to hear, that which he did not want to remember.

He was sure it had been sloppy, but he felt confident that it had worked. He put a stopper in the vial and handed it to Dumbledore, trying his best to appear normal.

“Thank you, Horace,” said Dumbledore, eyeing him shrewdly. “I do not underestimate the courage it took to provide something so personal.”

Horace only felt a niggling bit of guilt in his stomach as he said, “Not at all, my dear man. I only wish I had more information to give you.”

Dumbledore smiled at him genially, and all at once Slughorn knew, though he didn’t know how he knew it, that Dumbledore was well aware of Slughorn’s memory alteration. “Well Horace, I will impose upon your hospitality no longer. I do hope that we don’t go so long without crossing paths, this time.”

“No, no,” said Slughorn gruffly, ushering Dumbledore to the front door hastily. “Definitely not, I’m sure we’ll see one another at some stodgy Ministry gathering or other.”

Dumbledore chuckled merrily, “Ah, how kind of you to presume I will receive an invitation to a future function at the Ministry.”

Slughorn waved his hand dismissively, “Your influence has outlasted every Minister yet, Dumbledore, I don’t doubt that the tides will turn back in your favor soon.”

“I won’t count the days until that moment,” replied Dumbledore, still smiling. “Thank you again Horace. And do let me know if you ever find yourself remembering anything else.”

Slughorn was sure his smile was pained as he waved and closed the door. As soon as it was closed, the smile dropped from his face and he leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

He was back.

Among all the wild plans that were brewing in his mind the rest of the afternoon, including moving house immediately and setting up further magical protections around whatever safe residence he managed to find, the most firm of them all was to ensure that Dumbledore never found him so vulnerable again.


End file.
